ISLAMABAD : Dec 13,2022: Pakistan has managed to overcome all legal and technical hitches to meet the deadline for signing of the revised agreement with Barrick Gold for development of Reko Diq mining project on December 15,2022.
The government showed greenlight to the Petroleum Division for signing of the amended
agreement with Barrick Gold.
The federal cabinet in its meeting held here on Tuesday approved out of court settlement for multi billion dollar Reko Diq mining project and permitted the authorities to sign an amended agreement with Barrick Gold , a Canadian company , for development of the project .
Prime minister , Shahbaz Sharif , chaired the cabinet meeting .
The cabinet had a threadbare discussion on the amended agreement and it was followed by grant of permission to the concerned division to sign revised agreement with Barrick Gold .
Barrick Gold, the world renowned gold mining company , had taken an initiative to sort out dispute with Pakistan through an out of court settlement and develop the mine. It also agreed to invest $ 7 billion for development of the project.
Reko Diq project falls in Balochistan and it had run into trouble in 2011 when the Supreme Court of Pakistan had scrapped its agreement with Barrick Gold of Canada and Antofagasta of Chillee . This caused delay of 11 years in development of the Reko Diq mine.
The federal cabinet sharply divided over revised agreement on Reko Diq. Two main coalition partners of Shahbaz government, Jamiat e Ulema Islam Fazal (JUI-F) and Balochistan National Party (BNP) boycotted the cabinet meeting due to having some reservations on the revised agreement.
Seeing hard stance of two key partners , the government has formed a ,5-member committee .
Prime minister, Shahbaz Sharif, also spoke to BNP chief Sardar Akhtar Mangal and JUI-F chief , Maulana Fazal Ur Rehman , on phone to address their reservations on the revised agreement. The prime minister assured to the estranged coalition partners that their reservations on amended agreement would be addressed soon.
